Phils Should Explore A-Rod if Available

Reports from ESPN New York indicate that the Yankees have begun to explore ways to void third baseman Alex Rodriguez‘s contract in the wake of his connection to a “wellness clinic” in Miami, which reportedly supplied athletes with PEDs, including human growth hormone (HGH) and other substances banned by MLB. Rodriguez’s name appears in the records of Anthony Bosch, the nutritionist who ran the wellness clinic, sixteen times, including direct links between A-Rod and HGH. The Yankees see this is a possible route of escape from the last five years and $114 million of his contract.

If that happens, however unlikely it may be, the Phillies should call immediately.

Don’t get me wrong: there is no precedent for teams being able to void contracts for using, buying, or being connected with PEDs. But the evidence of A-Rod’s connection is pretty damning early and the Yankees plan to pursue options of voiding his contract based on everything from visiting a non-team approved doctor and the fact that he may have broken the law by purchasing banned substances. ESPN cites a source that reports that the Yankees are exploring “20 different things” to get him out of town.

Should A-Rod become available, his .272/.353/.430, 18 HR and 13 SBs would be welcomed at the hot corner at a reasonable price, even with Michael Young on the roster. Young has been described by General Manager Ruben Amaro as someone who can fill in at first as recently as January 22 and Young may have some versatility up the middle.

A-Rod has played a near neutral third base defensively for the Yankees, a vast improvement over Young and his 2.2 fWAR provided nearly $10 million in value last year in a down year. In the unlikely event that A-Rod is released, would he accept a two-year, $10 million deal to come to the Phillies?

Can A-Rod still play at a high level? Debatable: he obviously is not what he once was. His defensive value has remained steady while his speed numbers have declined, as expected. He has struggled to see the field as much as he used to but he did play over 80 games at third the last two seasons while getting days from the field off as a DH, playing 137, 99, and 122 total games the last three seasons. His hip injury is concerning to the point where Ken Rosenthal has suggested he could choose to collect the final five years of his contract by having a doctor essentially say that he is no longer fit to play. He is facing a possible second surgery in the last four years and, this time, would be unable to use performance enhancers to supplement his recovery.

But imagine this scenario: the Phillies are fighting for their lives at the All-Star break. The Yankees have been able to void their contract with A-Rod and he has fully recovered from his second hip surgery by June, as estimated. And Young at third base isn’t setting the world on fire. Do you make the call to A-Rod?

More importantly: as a fan, would you want that? Would you want a solid veteran Top-10 third baseman who is among the greatest of all time who can still contribute to a baseball team on your team knowing he has sidestepped the rules?

Since A-Rod’s steroid mea culpa with Peter Gammons in 2009, Rodriguez has maintained a storyline that he only took steroids from 2001 through 2003 in response to the pressure of being the highest paid player in Major League history. Now? A-Rod has hired a lawyer to defend him from the new allegations that that was not the only period he took them.

As a fan, there would be trust issues involved. A-Rod’s story on the surface has changed from him never taking steroids, to him taking steroids only for a short period until a 2003 epiphany, to now being accused of being in connection with a nefarious and infamous “wellness clinic” in Miami. Rodriguez, in his 2009 interview with Gammons, suggested that he took steroids in part because it was part of the culture. Are we naive enough to believe that it is still not part of the culture, particularly in light of the NFL’s Ray Lewis being accused taking a compounded form of deer antlers and the realization that the NFL doesn’t have HGH testing? And if we are naive enough to believe that it is not in the game, like the sports writers who cheered Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa but now hold them out of the Hall of Fame, would that affect how you felt about the Phillies if they would pursue A-Rod?

In terms of play on the field, A-Rod is not the best player in the game any longer or even the best third baseman in the American League. But he is absolutely worth exploring should he be available for a contract of no longer than two years, $4-5 million a year.

well, I think Ian’s premise is IF his contravct’s voided, leaping to IF it happens. You’re welcome for the obvious :-).

But I remember someone who shall remain nameless to protect my well protected rep as mentally incompetent expressing that the Phils should check things out before the hip deal was announced. I laughed pretty hard at myself last night when I thought back to that. Geez, imagine if they had acquired him for even a fraction of what Mike Young will get, now that he’s sure to miss half a year.

But this isn’t about leading into agreeing with exploring him even though that was my thinking at the time. Of course, we don’t know, and not to follow redneck lines and convict early, but what a putz this guy is. I just can’t help but feel like he’s guilty, and I won’t produce the long list of items where he has quite clearly shown to be an absolute moron.

At a minimum, he can’t play for months anyhow, and I’d say if Mike Young is playing decently, even if Asche looks like he might need another year of experience, forget it. Decently is gray, since time is on our side to decide.

You know, they signed some degree of mental reclamation project in D Young, they maybe skipped Melky I’d assume at least in part because of his mental status, here we are talking from a distance about signing Alex, but they skipped the one guy who unequivocally would have made a difference in Josh (this of course avoids the all important financial aspect), but this’d be a sorry guy to wear a Phils uniform.

Just my amatuer guess, but I don’t think the Yanks are lucky enough to get out from the deal anyway. Unless Alex admits to it, since there’s no positive test, there’s no proff of crime. But he sure seems so incredibly stupid.

The answer is in the ESPN article: “Baseball can suspend Rodriguez… without a positive test…. [K]nown as a non-analytic positive, the league will need documentary evidence… that would convince an independent arbitrator.”

so how does MLB suspending him lead to termination of the contract? And maybe they have the power to suspend him, but on what grounds? Maybe I should read the article, which would be made easy if you’d care to link it.

He did, and I finally read it after thinking yesterday it was gonne be wasteful speculation, and this paragraph stood out to me…

“According to a source, the fact that the Yankees continued to honor Rodriguez’s 10-year, $275 million contract extension after his public admissions of PED use in 2009 might further weaken their case to void the contract.”

I think that’s good thinking. Sure, as the piece goes on to say, the time the Moron admitted to using was with a different club, but if they couldn’t/didn’t void it then, they lose the angle of failure to live up to the morals expected as a player. Fact is, he was a player then.

Who knows, and considering the personality of the discussion, who cares.

Just guessing here, but if MLB can suspend Rodriguez based on documentary evidence alone, then I suppose they could start that suspension after he returns from his medical rehab. If that were to happen, Alex would likely be unavailable through a third of the 2014 season.
More importantly, how valuable to a team (Yankees, Phillies or otherwise) is a hobbled, aging athlete whose accomplishments may have been exaggerated by performance enhancing drugs?

I don’t want A-Rod here at all. He’s a classy guy if you consider “asshole” a class of guy. I don’t care if Michael Young isn’t as good of a player – at least he has a “good guy” image. A-Rod asking girls for their numbers in the middle of a baseball game is just A-Rod in a nutshell. He’s just not that interested in baseball anymore and I don’t want that kind of attitude on the team.

As for Ian’s scenario, why would you need A-Rod with Galvis & Frandsen on the active roster and Hernandez, Martinez, Bentacourt, and other utility IFs in AAA? We have insurance at 3B and Asche could be ready to fill in as early as August.

While it is worth exploring if Ian’s scenario plays out, I don’t think the Phillies should sign A-Rod.

The full Miami New Times article is very intriguing… and although there’s no fire, there’s a whole lot of smoke. Hand written notes, spreadsheets, ex-employees, ex-patients, ex-investors… a lot of people vouching that this was going on.

Gio Gonzalez was named five times, as well as his father. His father admitted to meeting with Anthony Bosch because he, “needed to lose weight.” I’m sorry but that’s too close of a connection for me (in this day and age).

If Gio Gonzalez is found guilty and suspended, it will have a GIGANTIC impact on the NL East race. I’d hate to see any team reach the post season because of it, but then again, it’s possible that a Gio on steroids may have helped the Nats win unfairly last year.

I wish the whole performance enhancement thing would just go away so we’d have more clarity concerning who’s actually better, but it won’t. Even the current policies don’t seem to have done much good.

To Publius… saying that what he took from the shady anti-aging clinic was legal is a very slippery slope. I don’t know what Aminorip is but it sounds like a one-up substance; something that provides testosterone-like effects… which is why baseball needs to impose an approved list and not a banned substances list… which is why baseball needs to impose a rule against players obtaining/being prescibed/taking substances from outside sources (like shady anti-aging clinics). Gio’s on the list… his dad has admitted to meeting the doctor but denies Gio ever met him. Sounds hella’ fishy to me.

I want it to go away too but it’s obviously not. Baseball is still behind the curve – just beginning to test in-season for HGH this year. That’s a joke… but the biggest gripe I have in all of this is the trainers, who are supposed to be professionals. You don’t get that close to players and not know what’s going on.

Hypothetical question… let’s say Aminorip is a wonder-drug that provides steroid-like results without the harmful side effects. We would be talking about legally inflated numbers… broken records, better play all around… but fake, none the less. How would you feel about that? With technological and medical advancements, that could be possible. Are we banning steroids because they’re harmful and illegal or because they inflate numbers? I think that’s an important distinction to make because it helps you draw the arbitrary line of approval (since everyone seems to be ok with protein and B12 injections).

Maybe you didn’t notice the “if” in my comment. I’m accusing nobody, not even A-Rod, until more comes out. This entire post is speculation, and so was my above comment. You shouldn’t be making iron clad claims until all the facts are in.

I almost hope that these reports are a load of hooey, because then there’d be no reason whatsoever for the Phils to consider an aging, declining player with bad hips who may not even be able to play now; he’d still be with the Yanks. Screw his WAR, his slash line, his supposed great numbers last year, when he also had injury issues. When you’re done, you’re done, and A-Rod gives every indication of being fresh from the oven.

I don’t see any reason whatsoever to even explore signing a 37 year old injured (and it’s been chronic hip problems, not a one-time thing), declining player with a history of being a turd, who would only play a couple of months, if at all. The front office and medical staff, have more important things to do with their time.

Idiot. But I guess if the roster is big enough for one over-weight anti semitic outfielder… why not add the most morally bankrupt cheater this side of Barry Bonds. I can’t tell if this article is a send up to elicit comments… if it was… I bit. But so does this article (bites, that is)

Couple things: Possibilities are slim and none the Yankees are able to get his contract voided and before that, he may get a doctor to say he is unable to play so that he can get paid and the Yankees get the insurance on the contract.

But in the 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 chance that he not only is no longer a Yankee AND he has healed from hip surgery, what is so wrong with taking on a flyer who has been substantially better than the player you just traded for at a salary $2 million less who has been among the worst players in baseball?

I have reservations, preconceived ideas about the way I feel about the guy, but there is nothing really wrong with the idea.

The problem as I see it is that there is not a court in New York that would allow that contract to be voided. The guy has never even been suspended right, so this would count as first offense? He still has two more after this (if found guilty of anything now) before that type of action could even be considered.

Interesting. How do you know he never cared about any of those teams he played for? If these allegations are true it seems to me that he’s a guy who is doing everything he possibly can to make himself better for his employer really does care about the team. After he signed his huge extension he could have just sat back, not done anything, gotten fat like Delmon Young or Yuni Betancourt, and collected his guaranteed paycheck. But he did nothing of the sort…if the allegations are true he’s done everything he possibly could to improve his game, or to at least keep it from deteriorating. That, to me, signals a guy who wants to win, not a guy who doesn’t care about the fortunes of the team he’s on.

This is a city that has embraced a guy who killed dogs for sport and a guy who publicly assaulted his wife, and a team that has employed all sorts of miscreants, from guys who drunkenly get into fights with police officers to guys who miss portions of the season because they’ve been out drunk driving and slamming into a tree, to a guy who assaulted someone while engaging in an anti-Semitic rant, to A GUY WHO TRIED TO HACK MULTIPLE PEOPLE TO DEATH ON HIS FARM IN VENEZUELA WITH A DAMN MACHETE AND THEN LIGHT THEM ON FIRE!

So, if the worst thing A-Rod did was hit on a couple girls in the stands and take some hormones while playing a passable 3B and hitting .272/.353/.430, that’s A-OK with me, and a lot better than what lots of

As you can probably tell from the tenor of my comments above, if the Yankees can void A-Rod’s contract (they won’t), and you can sign him for a relatively reasonable salary (you can’t), then I’d love to see A-Rod on the Phils. He’s still a very good hitter as far as third basemen go, and is a decent fielder at third, attributes neither of which Michael Young possesses.

There are a number of differences between D.Young and A. Rod. Although they both have behavior issues, Young has not so far been linked to PEDs. Young is healing from an injury, and should be available soon; Rodriguez is injured and may have difficulty ever playing again. Young is only 27, entering his prime physically, and could concievably improve; Rodriguez is 37 and likely headed downhill. Young can be dumped for a pittance; Rodriguez, if signed, would most likely cast about $5M if he has to be released.

I’m not going to defend the Young signing, but I can easily see why others could find it somewhat reasonable, yet still find a Rodriguez signing a bad idea.

Earlier,, yesterday, I was going to make a comment kind of like this. I really don’t give one rat’s a$$ about A-Rod’s OPS+ last year. He’s quickly on his way down and $5M is too much money to risk spending.

Chuck, the Phillies are spending more than $5 million dollars on their current third baseman who also “on his way down” and is currently nowhere near as good as A-Rod is, so unless you really dislike the Mike Young acquisition, it seems you’d be taking opposing views on two similar players.

From an organizational standpoint, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to completely eschew players who can give you above-average production on a cheap, short-term deal.

EricL, at this point, both players are declining, and I don’t think there’s that huge of a difference. And Michael Young, last time I looked, didn’t have a hip injury that will take at least until June to heal, and from which he may never be the same. There are other reasons besides health, like attitude and PED use where they differ. All those reasons, at least to me, make the Young signing far more tolerable.

It’s amazing to me… The same people that have been b!tching like crazy that the Phillies keep signing or trading for older players that are past their prime are some of the same ones that are now advocating A-Rod coming here.

First of all, whether you like the Michael Young signing or not (and I understand the argument both ways)….the fact is that he’s now ours…at MORE than $5M per season. We also have Frandsen and Galvis as subs. Why on God’s green earth do the Phillies need to go out and spend another $5M on Alex Rodriguez???

Secondly, the Delmon Young “baggage” aside (not condoning it)….do we really need a guy with baggage such as A-Rod’s?? PEDs. Attitude. Flirting with and asking out women DURING games.

Unless I overlooked someone or Chuck A. is also following other blogs’ comment sections, the only three people on here that are advocating for ARod – in this extremely unlikely scenario – are Publius, EricL and me. I have not seen either Publius or EricL “bitch like crazy” about the Phils signing older players although I admittedly have not read every comment.

Publius and EricL,

Have either of you “bitched like crazy” that the Phillies keep signing older players?

Maybe you’re memory isn’t as long as mine. People have been griping about the Phils adding old guys for ages. Polanco was too old, Rollins should not have been extended, etc. You can look back only a short time to see the complaints about the team’s aging lineup and Amaro’s supposed failure to address it. Maybe I shouldn’t bring that up in this thread, but I think it’s relevant. I probably should have made my point more clearly and included some reference to last year, and also to some complaints voiced earlier this off-season when Amaro was rumored to be considering trading for Soriano and actually trading for Michael Young (Young isn’t that bad, he just had a bad season. Most complaints as I saw them were that he was too old to have a better one). But I figured that many fans would be well-versed enough in this site’s comments to realize what I was talking about.

I don’t disagree that many people griped about the Phillies signing old players. I am just saying that they are not the SAME people (as Chuck claimed in amazement) who are on this thread promoting the team signing ARod in this hypothetical situation.

To the best of my knowledge I’ve only complained about the type of old players that the Phillies are signing (guys who are bad at baseball now). I’ve also complained about the signing of young players who aren’t good at what they’re being asked to do (Delmon Young is only 28).

But my criticism has never been solely about the age of a player. We would do well to remember that a 39 year old left-fielder put up one of the best offensive seasons in the history of the sport, with a .609 (!!) on-base percentage and an .812 (!!!) slugging percentage. (He also hit .276/.480/.565 when he was 42, right before he was blacklisted by baseball)

I guess we should just forget that the 39 year old leftfielder was taking Deca-Durabolin, HGH, Clomid, Modafinil, Winstrol, Norbolethone, Insulin, Andriol, and Trenbolone? To use Bonds as an example of an athlete’s aging process is just inane.

If A-Rod is signed and turns out to be as bad as I truly believe he will be, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts the same people advocating his signing will be saying “He’s too old now.”

Of course, I’ve never been known for having any faith in people. Every person I’ve ever met tends to rationalize, make excuses, and disavow his previous utterances in order to keep his backsides well covered. That includes myself.

Right George, and if the Delmon Young signing and/or the Michael Young trade goes bad, I’m sure those that defended those moves will come on here and admit they were wrong, just like they did after defending the Danys Baez and Chad Qualls signings and the Moyer and Ibanez overpays. Oh wait, never mind, in looking back at the comments, the defenders continued (and still continue) to defend those moves, even after they went horribly bad.

So some are still defending the Baez and Qualls moves? That’s just proving my point: people covering their butts by rationalizing. I was being nasty about those A-Rod advocates suddenly switching sides because I’m a little tired of a thread concerning a player who has about a quadrillion in one chance of being a Phillie. I shouldn’t have said what I said, and I apologize for that.

I’m usually the kind who says “let’s wait and see what he’s got,” but sometimes I feel a proposal is just so bad I sometimes will voice my opinion in an overly vociferous manner.

hk – the fact that only 3 people on here are in favor of such a scenario HAS to tell you something, huh? It’s either that you 3 think that you’re somehow smarter than the rest of us or that the rest of us might actually have some common sense.

Again….think about my comment/question above….if we now have M Young in the fold and Frandsen and Galvis as subs….why would we even entertain bringing in A-Rod ??…. ESPECIALLY with everything that surrounds him???

You’re missing the point. The point is that you were amazed that the SAME people who supported signing ARod also criticized the Phillies for signing older players. I was just pointing out that that was untrue and that the people – and you should include Ian among them – who were for signing ARod in this hypothetical scenario were not opposed to the Phillies signing old players…we were all just opposed to them signing bad players.

Obviously, I wouldn’t do anything until MLB determines whether or not ARod is going to be suspended for the PED’s issue. However, once that’s known, if the suspension is going to occur concurrently with ARod’s recovery from surgery, we can estimate that ARod will miss half the season. If so, I would predict that there’s a 50/50 chance that ARod will produce more WAR in 2013 than Michael Young. Therefore, I feel that it would be worth the money to have him as an option for the second half of the season. The best case scenario would be that Howard reverts to his 2010-2011 form and that Michael Young reverts to his 2011 form, in which case RAJ would have to decide whether to try to trade ARod when he’s healthy or ask Charlie to find him AB’s. On the other hand, if one of the worst cases plays out (i.e. Howard gets injured or Michael Young proves that 2012 was the start of his decline phase), having ARod to plug in over the second half would probably prove better than most other options. I don’t understand why a team that’s shown a willingness to squander dollars on bad players with bad character would not take a chance on spending dollars on a still good player with bad character.

I’m with HK: It’s not about not signing older players – it’s about not signing/acquiring BAD players. Both Youngs were among the ten or so players who qualified for the batting title last year and provided negative value to their team.

There was only ten of them and the Phillies went out of their way to acquire two of them. They were the only team in the last ten years to do that – probably longer but I couldn’t stand to research it in the event that they were the ONLY team ever to do that which would have been really disappointing to find out.

you hit it on the nose chuck. people bitch and complain about the ave. age of the phils and their signing of old players. i’m a big NO on A-hole! i completely understand the phils signing of young. that he can most definately give us what frandsen gave them and possibly more all season. that’s # 1 #2 would be asche waiting in the wings. young is a one year deal. and by signing him he not only will be ok at third but it makes our bench deeper and more versatile with gavis and frandsen on it. i would have been ok if fransden had the job till asche was ready, but i’m good with young. he’s a gamer, and has character of the highest degree. he’s the kind of guy you want playing as a roll model for the younger players on the team. not A-hole